Eddie Wilson

Edward Francis Wilson

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 5' 11", Weight 165 lb.
• School College of the Holy Cross
• Debut June 21, 1936
• Final Game October 2, 1937
• Born September 7, 1909 in Hamden, CT USA
• Died April 11, 1979 in Hamden, CT USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Eddie Wilson was an outfielder for 14 years (1928-1941) - two in college (1928-1929), two in the Majors (1936-1937) and 13 in the minors (1929-1941). He graduated from High School in 1928 at age 18. He then attended the College of the Holy Cross (1928-1936), where he earned his degree in education.

He broke into Organized Baseball in 1929 at age 19 and played with New Haven in the Eastern League, hitting .248/~.364/.344 with 73 walks. That year, he also appeared for the Baltimore Orioles in the International League, batting .290 in eight contests. He spent the next year with the Henderson Gamecocks in the Piedmont League and posted a .313 average.

Moving up to the New York-Pennsylvania League's York White Roses, Wilson hit .279 in 1931. After a .267 campaign for the 1932 Charlotte Hornets in the Piedmont League, Wilson played in 1933 for the Springfield in the Middle Atlantic League and hit .337/~.436/.503 with 25 stolen bases in 30 attempts, 10 homers and 58 RBI.

Wilson's next stop was the Hazleton Mountaineers (NYP). He hit .315 with 91 RBI for them in 1934 and .319 with nine home runs and 84 RBI at age 25 the next year. His next team was also in the New York-Penn League - the 1936 Allentown Brooks (.304).

Wilson was 26 years old when he broke into the big leagues on June 21, 1936, with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Despite showing surprisingly impressive offensive skills (.347/.402/.457 with 60 hits, 28 runs, 8 doubles, 1 triples, 3 home runs, 25 RBI and 3 stolen bases in 52 games), he was unable to make the team the next year, he was sent down to the Jersey City Giants in the International League (.232/~.322/.331) and was recalled by Brooklyn where he played his final MLB game on October 2, 1937 at age 28. His second stint in the majors had not been as good as his first as he managed only a .222/.408/.389 line.

On August 26, 1936, Wilson, batting .347 for the Dodgers, was hit in the head by a pitch from Mace Brown of Pittsburgh. Wilson was rushed to St. John's hospital in Pittsburgh where he was diagnosed with a fractured skull. This ended his 1936 season and may explain why his career went into a downward spiral afterward.

He returned to the minors with the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League (1938-1939, hitting .272 the first year and .283 the next), the Salem Senators in the Western International League (.338 in 1940), the Chattanooga Lookouts of the Southern Association (.128 the same year), Portland again (.182 in limited time in 1941) and the Wenatchee Chiefs in the Western International League (.274, also in '41), ending his baseball career at age 32.

Overall in MLB, he had 72 hits, 39 runs, 12 doubles, 2 triples, 4 home runs, 33 RBI and 4 stolen bases at (.317/.404/.389] in 88 games. Overall in the minors, he had 66 home runs and 620 RBI.

Wilson served in the U.S. Merchant Marines during World War II (BN). He was a school teacher. He died at age 69 at Hilltop House in Hamden, CT on April 11, 1979 and is buried at St. Lawrence Cemetery in West Haven, CT.

Sources

Principal sources for Eddie Wilson include newspaper obituaries (OB), government Veteran records (VA,CM,CW), Stars & Stripes (S&S), Sporting Life (SL), The Sporting News (TSN), The Sports Encyclopedia:Baseball 2006 by David Neft & Richard Cohen (N&C), old Who's Who in Baseballs (none) (WW), old Baseball Registers (none) (BR) , old Daguerreotypes by TSN (none) (DAG), Stars&Stripes (S&S), The Baseball Necrology by Bill Lee (BN), Pat Doyle's Professional Ballplayer DataBase (PD), The Baseball Library (BL), Baseball in World War II Europe by Gary Bedingfield (GB) ; The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957 by Dennis Snelling; The Southern Association in Baseball, 1885-1961 by Marshall D. Wright; The International League: Year-by-year Statistics, 1884-1953 by Marshall D. Wright; and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Related Sites

• Eddie Wilson at the Baseball Almanac
• Bio at the Baseball Page
• Eddie Wilson at Retrosheet
• and a full Bibliography from SABR's The Baseball Index (TBI)